


Half Words, Whispered Low

by allegoricalrose (SilentStars)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 09:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3061949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStars/pseuds/allegoricalrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a tumblr prompt "hugs and kisses." <i>He has no idea.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Words, Whispered Low

He has no idea.

At least, she assumes he has no idea. Hopes he has—no, that’s not right. If he did— _oh_ —if he did…

She hears footsteps—he’s always barefoot—shuffling down the hallway and she rolls over and closes her eyes. Just in case. The door swings open, silently, but she feels the subtle movement of air blow across her cheek. Fire leaps in the grey stone hearth in front of the bed, and she watches light from the flames twist and cavort across her closed eyelids.

Icy cold sweeps along her back for only second before the heavy comforter is replaced, the feather mattress barely dipping as he curls up behind her, back to chest, burying his face into the dip of her neck. There’s only the crackling of the fire and the barely perceptible noise of his nails as he drags one hand along the linen sheets and under the pillow, grasping her hand where it lies in a mirrored position and linking their fingers. His other arm slips under the covers and over her waist, pulling her flush against his body. His forearm runs between her breasts, his hand fisted against her clavicle, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before he slides one knee between hers. He always does.

With only a hairsbreadth between his knuckles and her lips, she counts to seven and presses a feather-light kiss to the finger that pressed the big red button and erased his species from existence.

His breathing deepens with a sigh and she opens her eyes. The triple moonlight is strong, up here in the Emperor of Caraain’s secluded hunting lodge, and she watches the snow slowly accumulate on the outside window ledge, shimmering in the white glow. The scintillating snowflakes are indistinguishable from the shining stars overhead and it looks like the stars are languidly falling from the night sky and crowding to peek in through her windowsill. 

“You complete me,” he murmurs, snaking his leg in between hers and tangling their feet together. His words are hot on the back of her neck but a shiver runs down her spine.

“You make me better.”

“You are my universe.”

His words are intoned low and quietly, a rhythmic quality drumming against her heart. Some nights it’s these words, chanted like a prayer, other nights he calls up snippets of poetry or verse. She recognises little of it, wonders if some might be composed by the rough and leathered Time Lord himself. After particularly difficult days, it’s dulcet words in a melodic language she assumes is his own and her hair is wet afterward.

The first time, after the Dalek, she had welcomed him with a smile, knowing the anguish he had been through in that underground museum and thrilled to be his solace. Oh, how she’d whispered back doggerels of comfort, promised him vast infinitudes with the deepest sincerity and nervous anticipation, only to be thoroughly perplexed when he slipped away minutes later and squinted at her for acting odd in the morning.

It became clearer the next night when he returned his arms around her like they belonged there. Sleepwalking. What a child she had been, pledging him an eternity she didn’t possess and a love he could never return. He was _the Doctor_ , she had reminded herself: he was almost a god and she was no more than a transient swerve in the tight spiral of his lifetime.

So she takes what he _can_ give, an unconscious twenty or thirty minutes of tenderness from an otherwise gruff and broken man every night. And if she sometimes pretends that he says her name in his sleep and those words are meant for her alone, or fantasises that those fleeting minutes are real life and everything else is just the stuff in between, well… 

She does break occasionally in the daylight hours, baits him about dancing and lightheartedly flirts. Sometimes she even imagines those looks he gives her are ones of longing or jealousy. But she knows the status quo and she knows the impossibility of it all.

“I love you,” he whispers tonight, and her sleep-laden eyes snap open.

“I love you, Rose, I love you. I love you.” His words are urgent and needy; she’s never heard him use this tone in the night’s shadow, much less these words. _And her name, oh, her name…_

“I love you, I love you,” she whispers back, the words cracking and breaking into a billion pieces in her heart. Silent tears begin to spill out of her eyes and she turns further into the pillow to soak them up. Even if it’s true, it only hurts more that he can only say such things under the veil of sleep. It’s still impossible.

Suddenly his lips are pressed to her shoulders, sucking lightly. She freezes.

Open-mouthed kisses forge a path up her neck, pausing to nip and latch down on her skin every few steps. Even as she knows she should stop this, knows this is just an involuntary physical reaction he would never allow to happen in the light of day, she tilts her head forward to give him better access. A quiet whimper escapes her lips.

His body language changes; he emits a low rumble from the back of his throat and he moves his hand down to palm her breast, clasping it possessively. At the same time, he brings his leg fully over her leg and back between her knees, effectively pinning her hips to his. His other hand detangles itself from hers and slides under her body to clutch her other breast and he rocks his pelvis against her backside. With a sharp intake of breath, she realises he is hard and pressing into her; liquid heat shoots from her chest to her groin and she squirms and semi-consciously rubs her thighs together for friction. 

She is aroused and distraught and all she wants to do is arch back into him and guide his fingers down to where she needs them most or turn around and bite his lower lip and she can’t and he won’t. And still he slowly thrusts and still his fingers knead her aching breasts and still he clutches her to himself like she is the most precious thing in the universe.

If she wakes him up, he’ll skitter away like a cornered animal and probably never sleep again to avoid a repeat. She won’t risk that. Exhaling slowly, she tries to extract herself from his strong grip but he only clings tighter.

“Mine,” he growls and bites down on skin just to the right of the dip in her throat, hard enough to leave a mark.

She’s panting as she gingerly tries again, wishing for all the world he were awake for her undoing and that she could simply surrender to him. But she can’t because he wouldn’t. She wants his hugs and kisses, but not like this. Not when he’s only dreaming and she can only dream.

He refuses her escape once more, moving one hand to grip her hip. “Don’t leave me,” he pleads in a broken whisper, digging his fingers into the bone. His eyes are still closed.

“Shhh…” she says with tears running down her face, their saltiness stinging her snow-chapped lips. Carefully she turns in his arms to face him, stroking his cheek and continuing to make comforting sounds. Rolling him onto his back, she finally manages to slip out of his arms and out of the bed.

She shivers in the cold as she sees him blindly pat the empty sheets, searching for her, and eventually collapsing to the bed in defeat. He hunches up into himself, one hand over his head and his body in fetal position. The soft moonlight casts blue shadows across his tense facial features, highlighting the angles of his cheekbones, and residual light from the snow dances across his arms and shoulders. For a split second, he’s the cast of a huddled Pompeian she once saw in a textbook, burning up with heat under the falling ash. 

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out quietly and with a heavy and chafing heart drags herself out of the room and into his, across the hall. Tomorrow she’ll feed him a story about how she saw a nasty spider or something in her room and begged him to switch rooms in the middle of the night, will laugh when he doesn’t remember.

She’s tempted to crawl into Jack’s bed and cry in his arms but knows that’s just about the worst thing she can do right now. Maybe she will call Mickey, think of some excuse to see him soon, get some perspective and distance from the emotional mire into which she’s jumped headfirst. She can ask him for her passport, maybe…

And a scarf, she decides, fingering his bite on her neck as she drifts back to a fitful sleep: tomorrow is definitely a day for a scarf.


End file.
